Category: Access to Information

PCIJ Advisory: Duterte SALN story

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WE SEEM to have offended strongly partisan political sensitivities with our story on the SALN for 2015 of presidential frontrunner and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte.

Just to be clear: We computed for percentage change in the net worth of the candidates for president, covering their first to their latest available SALNs on PCIJ’s file, to get our starting and end values.

On certain years, some of them did not file or had no available SALNs. In the absence of net worth values for the missing years, it would be difficult to derive the weighted average of the growth in their wealth, year on year.

We thank you all for your kind interest in our stories. We love numbers in a phenomenal way and remain non-partisan in a phenomenal way.

Poe’s 2015 SALN: P89-M net worth, P125-M assets, P36-M liabilities

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By Malou Mangahas

SEN. GRACE POE released this morning, May 4, a copy of her Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) for 2015 in which she declared a net worth of P89,118,760.02, a slight decrease from the P89.46 million enrolled in her SALN for 2014.

As of Dec. 31, 2015, the candidate for president of the Galing at Puso slate said she owned a total of 30 real properties, including 14 pieces of mostly residential real properties she purchased from 1992 to 2010 with aggregate acquisition cost of P95,002,568.81.

The 14 included two house and lots in California, USA — the first valued at P27,995,500 that Poe said she purchased in 1992, and the second valued at P15,074,500 that Poe said she purchased in 2008.

Poe gave only the “acquisition cost” of the two properties and left blank the columns for their “assessed value” and “current fair market value.”

In addition, Poe listed 16 other pieces of real assets — three commercial in nature, two agricultural, and 11 residential — for which she assigned zero acquisition cost.

She said all these 16 additional real properties were “inheritance” that passed on to her in 2004, the year her father Fernando Poe Jr. died.

Aside from real assets, Poe declared “personal and other properties” to be worth P30,656,423.16 in all, as of last yearend.

The amount included the following: the checking account she opened in 2011 with P862,099.92 balance; her husband’s checking account opened in 2006 with P474,183.57 balance; shares of stocks in nine various business entities acquired from 2006 to 2012; six vehicles; a “money market account” worth P96,415.17; and a foreign currency savings account opened in 2011 with P202,270.19.

Among her investments, Poe said she acquired in 2012 “shares of stocks (in) San Miguel Corporation A, by subscription — 8,500 shares.” However, her SALN had this notation for her stocks in San Miguel Corp. — “Divestment of stock began 19 APR 2016.”

Download (PDF, 2.21MB)

Again by “inheritance,” Poe said she had shares of stocks in two more entities — P7,375,000 in 226 Wilson Development Corp. (7,375 shares valued at P1,000 per share), and in P2,235,772, at face value, in FPJ Productions, Inc.

Poe’s latest SALN did not enroll values for furniture and appliances, books, paintings, jewelry and other entries that typically appear in the SALNs of many other public officials.

Minus the real properties and shares of stocks that she declared to be “inheritance” for which she assigned zero acquisition cost, the senator’s total assets (real assets plus personal properties) amounted to P125,658,991.97.

Her net worth for 2015 came up to just P89.1 million because she had total liabilities of P36,540,231.95.

These liabilities included, she said, subscription balance payable to JPS Realty & Development Corp, 226 Wilson Development Corp., and Chambrandt L. Holdings Corp.; a lot installment payable; two automobile loan payable; and a personal loan from Jesusa S. Poe of P17,760,000.

Popularly known by her screen name Susan Roces, Jesusa S. Poe is the senator’s mother and the widow of Fernando Poe Jr.

Poe’s SALN for 2015 made two disclosures in an extra page: “P451,661,64, running balance of Cash in Bank as of 31 December 2015” of her minor children; and “P4,780,237.70, running balance of Cash in Bank as of 31 December 2015” of Jesusa S. Poe’s aggregate savings/checking account in which the senator said she is a “secondary/co-signee.”

Poe said she has been an officer/shareholder from 2006 to 2009 in FPJ Productions, JPS Realty and Development Corp., and 226 Wilson Development Corp.; and a shareholder in AB Design Studios and Trading Corp. and The Health Cube Rehabilitation and Training Center.

Poe said her husband Teodoro ‘Neil’ V. Llamanzares is also an officer/shareholder in Chambrant L. Holdings Corp..

The senator’s latest SALN filing listed Llamanzares as an “Independent Management Consultant” in a company whose name was redacted or blackened in the document.

Poe named her two daughters aged 11 and 17 years old as minor dependents in her household.

Two relatives are employed in her office at the Senate — first cousin Lawrence S. Cruz, PAO III, and first cousin-in-law Anna Camille L. Sevilla, Director IV.

Poe’s SALN for 2015 was filed on April 29, 2016 and received on the same day by the Office of the Senate Secretary.

PCIJ had requested since last Monday a copy of Poe’s latest SALN from her chief of staff. The copy was finally emailed Wednesday morning.

Poe filed her first SALN in 2010 as chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board or MTRCB, an appointee of President Benigno S. Aquino III. Back then, Poe had declared a net worth of P152.53 million.

It slipped to P132.25 million in 2011 and recovered to P147.8 million in 2013, the year she was elected senator. Poe’s net worth skidded significantly to P89.46 million in her SALN for 2014. — PCIJ, May 2016
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For more details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

802 unopposed local bets in areas with 6.8-M voters

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By Vino Lucero

THE IDEAL situation in any election is that two or more candidates fight for a seat, and they earn the votes through the merit of their platform, their track record, and their stand on issues.

In many areas in next Monday’s balloting, however, many candidates are running unopposed, or without any challengers to the throne. With no rival to worry about, it is possible that these candidates have been using their spare time to campaign for local party mates and their party’s national standard bearer and senatorial bets.

PCIJ. 2016 Unopposed, By Region

PCIJ curated data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on the candidates who are more than likely to be occupants of local positions in the next three years, simply because no one is running against them in the upcoming polls.

A total of 802 candidates for local positions – from provincial governor to municipal or city councilors – are running unopposed for the May 9, 2016 elections.

Of this number, 215 are vying to be city or municipal mayor and 249, to be city or municipal vice mayor. By many accounts, they are the not-so-secret weapons of national candidates and political parties eager to snare as much as 6.8 million votes altogether clustered in their localities.

Interestingly, 364 or 45 percent of the 802 names on the Comelec’s list of unopposed candidates are affiliated with the administration Liberal Party (LP), based on their Certificates of Candidacy (COC).

Another 101 of the unchallenged candidates, meanwhile, are from the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), 92 from the National Unity Party (NUP), 70 from the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), 68 from the Nacionalista Party, 62 are independent, and 45 from other parties.

PCIJ. 2016 Unopposed Candidates, By Party

Quid pro quo?

Of course, the willingness of local leaders to deliver votes for particular national candidates could turn into a simple quid pro quo equation. It may be dependent on the ability of the parties to grant what the unopposed politicos want in return. As Center for Local and Regional Governance (CLRG) Director Erwin Alampay points out, it is “not automatic” that unopposed local bets will actually deliver votes for their party’s national candidates.

“They might want to ask for machinery support or campaign donations,” he says, “so that they can conduct proper local campaigns for [national candidates] and their local slates.”

The number of registered voters where unopposed local candidates hold sway, however, may convince national candidates and their parties to do whatever they can to please the local bosses. As it is, the 215 cities and towns where the mayoralty race has just one candidate have a total of 5,915,756 registered voters. That’s more than 10 percent of the total number nationwide.

A bulk of the unopposed tally in fact can be found at the municipal/city level. Of the total 802 candidates without rivals, 194 are running for municipal mayor, 21 for city mayor, 226 for municipal vice mayor, and 23 for city vice-mayor. More than 30 cities and municipalities also have the same or fewer councilor candidates than there are seats to be filled, resulting in 250 candidates for councilor running unopposed.

“It is always good to have opposing voices in the local leadership, and that strives if candidates are from different parties,” says Alampay. “But in the case of unopposed slates, alternative voices may be shut off in the discussion of the local council.”

PCIJ. Vote Reach, Unopposed Mayor Bets

Wannabe mayor

In any case, it is LP that has more candidates for mayor running unopposed: 103. The municipalities and cities where these candidates are running have a total population of 2,497,877 registered voters.

NPC is a far second in terms of its number of unopposed mayoralty candidates: 24. And even then, the cities and towns were these candidates are running have a lower number of voters – 656,222.

In contrast, the 21 unchallenged mayoralty candidates of NP represent 1,063,696 voters.

NUP also has 21 unopposed bets for mayor, but the cities and municipalities where they are running have only a total number of 605,505 voters.

UNA has 17 mayoralty candidates without rivals in cities and municipalities that have a total of 305,978 voters.

Of course, aside from their own unopposed bets for mayor, the national political parties can also reach out to the independent candidates. Sixteen of these independents are running unopposed as mayors, with their respective bailiwicks having a total of 313,032 voters altogether. (The smaller parties, meantime, have managed to have 13 unopposed mayoralty bets as well, with their cities and municipalities having a total of 473,446 registered voters.)

PCIJ. Vote Reach, Unopposed Vice Mayor Bets

Wannabe vice mayor

Other possible helping hands that the national parties and candidates can seek are those of candidates for vice mayor who are running unopposed. Although their political clout may not be as strong as the mayoralty bets, these unchallenged vice-mayoralty candidates most probably have their own circle of loyal supporters among their town or city’s voters.

All in all, the 249 unopposed candidates for vice mayor can bring as much as 6,756,586 registered voters to the election table.

Among the parties, LP again has the most number of unopposed bets for vice mayor at 111, with a potential voter reach of 2,337,788 million. NPC is second with 33, with a potential voter reach of 904,721; NUP 32, with 849,540 voter reach; NP 25, with 1,125,160 voter reach; and UNA 19, with 547,182 voter reach. Independents running unopposed for vice mayor number 11, with a total potential voter reach of 381,288, while smaller parties have 18 unchallenged vice-mayor bets, with a total voter reach of 610,907.

Eleven candidates for vice governor are also running unopposed across the nation, 33 for the Sangguniang Panlalawigan member, and 32 for district representative.

PCIJ. 2016 Unopposed Candidates, By Position

A bounty in ARMM

Among the regions across the country, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has the most number of unopposed candidates followed by Ilocos Region with 94, Region VI (Western Visayas) with 79, Caraga region with 53, and Region X (Northern Mindanao) with 50.

Of the unopposed in ARMM, 23 are running as municipal mayors, one as city mayor, 27 as municipal vice mayor, one as city vice mayor, and 96 as municipal councilors.

Metro Manila or the National Capital Region (NCR) is at the bottom of the region roster with only 11 unopposed bets, closely followed by Bicol Region with just 15 unchallenged candidates.

In NCR, each of Quezon City’s four Congressional districts has only one candidate running to represent it. Taguig has only one candidate each for mayor and vice mayor. Parañaque has a sole candidate for mayor, as does Navotas, which also has one vice mayoralty candidate. Manila’s 2nd Legislative District and Marikina’s 2nd Legislative District each has just one candidate for Congress.

Twelve provinces – six from Luzon, two from the Visayas, and four from Mindanao – have only one candidate each signed up for the gubernatorial race in the upcoming elections: Bataan, Pampanga, Camiguin, Agusan del Sur, Dinagat Islands, Davao Occidental, Biliran, Apayao, Mountain Province, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and Negros Occidental. – PCIJ, May 2016

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For details, please check out PCIJ and PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

Top cities, top vectors of votes

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By Davinci S. Maru

CITIES ARE where all kinds of opportunities can be found – and, unsurprisingly, where a lot of voters in this country happen to be.

As of records from the 2013 elections, the top 50 vote-rich cities across the Philippines have as much as 13.9 million of the nation’s voters. That is about one fourth of the latest total number of registered voters (54.4 million), and a sizeable chunk that could give a crucial boost to the chances of any national candidate winning in the upcoming elections.

Yet another no-surprise is that 38 out of the 50 vote-rich cities are in Luzon, the biggest island group, while seven are in Mindanao and the remaining five in the Visayas.

Too, majority of the top 10 cities with the most number of registered voters are in migrant-magnet Metro Manila: Quezon City (first place at 1,083,915); City of Manila (third at 952,962), Caloocan City (fourth at 636,625); City of Makati (seventh at 399,726); City of Pasig (ninth at 354,542), and Taguig City (tenth at 325,498). Davao City (second at 967,944), Cebu City (fifth at 547,463), Zamboanga City (sixth at 405,601), and City of Antipolo (seventh at 391,688) make up the rest of the top 10.
2013 TOP 50

Some of the candidates for the country’s two highest posts have considerable ties to a few of these cities. For instance, Quezon City, under the leadership of Mayor Herbert Bautista, is a bailiwick of the Liberal Party (LP) administration coalition, which could give an edge to the tandem of Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas II and Maria Leonor ‘Leni’ Robredo, LP candidates for president and vice president.

Presidential aspirant Rodrigo Duterte of the Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban (PDP-Laban), meanwhile, remains to be a force to be reckoned with in Davao City where he has served as an elected official for more than two decades. (He is currently its mayor.)

Duterte’s running mate Alan Peter Cayetano, for his part, can probably count on significant support from Taguig City, where his wife Lani is the incumbent mayor. Cayetano, currently a senator, was once vice mayor of Taguig and also representative of the then lone district of Taguig and Pateros in Congress.

Of course, there is Vice President Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), whose family until recently controlled Makati City since 1986. Binay started his political career in Makati City when the late President Corazon Aquino appointed him as its officer-in-charge.

Binay’s wife Elenita and his son Jejomar Erwin or ‘Junjun’ had taken turns with him in occupying Makati’s mayoral post. Last year, the Office of the Ombudsman dismissed Junjun Binay as Makati Mayor for grave misconduct and dishonesty. Mar-Len Abigail Binay, the Vice President’s younger daughter who is now on her last term as Makati’s representative in Congress, is set to run for mayor. That will pit her against her brother’s successor, Romulo ‘Kid’ Pena Jr., of the LP.

Aside from Makati, though, Binay had been counting on votes from Cebu, where the party dominated by the Garcia political clan had struck an alliance with UNA. Recently, however, the One Cebu Party declared its ties with UNA as no longer in effect. Instead, the party said it would be supporting Duterte’s quest for the presidency.
2010 TOP 50 (1)

Interestingly, the Top 50 vote-rich cities are considered rich in terms of assets and equity.

Based on the 2014 Annual Financial Report of the Commission Audit (COA), Makati City the highest equity among them, at P34 billion.

Equity is the difference between the local government unit’s total assets and liabilities.

Makati is followed by Quezon City with P31 billion, the City of Pasig with P20 billion, the City of Manila with P13 billion, and Zamboanga City with P10 billion. At sixth place is Cebu City with P7 billion, then Caloocan City with P6 billion, Marikina City with P4 billion, Calamba City with P4 billion and Cagayan De Oro City with P4 billion.

Essentially, the cities included in the vote-rich roster have stayed the same since 2007, although there have been some changes in the ranking. This is while the number of registered voters has continued to increase through the years.

2007 TOP 50

In the 2007 elections, there were 12,234,144 registered voters from the top 50 vote-rich cities. This figure increased by 10.8 percent in 2010 during the first nationwide automated election, with 13,555,685 people in these 50 cities registered as voters. But while the number of registered voters in the 50 top vote-rich cities went up again in 2013, the rise was a modest 2.8 percent, translating into 13,937,902. — PCIJ, May 2016
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For more details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

Votes by the pint: 17 provinces vote poor since 2004 elections

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By Vino Lucero

IN A tightly contested election, every vote matters, and even a vote-poor province could mean success or defeat for a national candidate.

But that momentary attention may not mean a boost to the province’s revenues after the polls. In fact, among the consistent placers in the list of 20 provinces with the least number of registered voters from 2004 to 2016, only one has been classified as second-class in terms of income. The rest ranked third-class and below.

First-class provinces have an average annual income of more than P450 million, while provinces in the second-class cluster earn P360 million or more but less than P450 million.

Third-class provinces have an income average of P270 million or more but less than P360 million; fourth- class with P180 million or more but less than P270 million; fifth-class with P90 million or more but less than P180 million; and sixth-class with less than P90 million.

PCIJ curated the Commission on Elections’ voter-statistics data to come up with a list of 20 provinces with the least number of registered voters from 2004 to 2016.

Seventeen were consistently on the list: Batanes, Siquijor, Camiguin, Guimaras, Quirino, Mountain Province, Ifugao, Biliran, Aurora, Kalinga, Marinduque, Tawi-Tawi, Catanduanes, Abra, Romblon, Basilan, and Nueva Vizcaya.

Of these, three provinces were fifth-class in income: Batanes, Camiguin, and Siquijor.

Four – Mountain Province, Guimaras, Biliran, and Marinduque – apparently made just enough to make it to fourth-class level.

The rest were classified under the third income class, except for Nueva Vizcaya, which was considered second-class in the 2015 listing of Bureau of Local Government Finance.

Unsurprisingly, Batanes has been on top of the list of provinces with the least number of registered voters since 2004. During that year, it had only around 8,800.

Batanes finally crossed the 10,000-mark in total number of registered voters only in 2010. Today it has around 11,000.

For the upcoming elections, 12 provinces in the vote-poor roster are from Luzon (Batanes, Apayao, Quirino, Mountain Province, Ifugao, Aurora, Kalinga, Marinduque, Catanduanes, Abra, Romblon, and Nueva Vizcaya); three are from the Visayas (Siquijor, Guimaras, and Biliran), and five are from Mindanao (Camiguin, Dinagat Islands, Tawi-Tawi, Davao Occidental, and Basilan).

The list has had more provinces from Luzon through the years. In 2004, 13 of the provinces in the vote-poor tally were also from Luzon (Batanes, Apayao, Quirino, Mountain Province, Ifugao, Aurora, Kalinga, Marinduque, Catanduanes, Abra, Romblon, Occidental Mindoro, and Nueva Vizcaya), while four were from the Visayas (Siquijor, Guimaras, Biliran, and Southern Leyte), and three from Mindanao (Camiguin, Tawi-Tawi, and Basilan).

Little movement can be seen in the roster, with even the same provinces appearing on it in 2007 and 2010.

In 2007, though, Dinagat Islands debuted on the list at fifth place, edging out Southern Leyte. But then Dinagat was declared a province only in 2006, by virtue of Republic Act No. 9355.

Camiguin also jumped from fourth place during the previous election to second place in 2007.

Apayao, meanwhile, has consistently made it to the magic five except in 2013 due to unavailability of data for the province in that election year. With the absence of Apayao on the list, Sulu managed to snatch the last spot on the bottom 20 in 2013.

Occidental Mindoro, Davao Occidental, and Southern Leyte have also been part of the list in non-consecutive instances. — PCIJ, April 2016

For more details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online.

2004 Bottom 20 2007 Bottom 20 2010 Bottom 20 2013 Bottom 20 2016 Bottom 20